The Inaugural session was by welcoming the Guest of Honor, Professor O.S. Gupta, and our Keynote Speaker CA B.P.Inani in the presence of Dr. P.K. Jain, Chairman Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies, Dr. CA Prashant Jain, Executive Director and Dr. Mona Tawar, Director. The conference was inaugurated with the traditional lighting of the lamp and Saraswati Vandana, where all the dignitaries and Director were present.

It was then followed by Institute Presentation, demonstrating Mission, Vision, Quality Policy, Institute Infrastructure and Placement Records of the Institute. The Presentation was highly appreciated by the Dignitaries, congratulating the Management on the growth and progression of the Institute.

Welcome Address by Dr. CA. P.K. JAIN

Finance is very close to the heart of Dr. CA P. K. Jain, Institute’s Chairman; he started his speech by saying the importance, role and complexity of finance due to continuously changing rules of the game. He also discussed some important and innovative instruments recently introduced in India such as Credit Default Swaps, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), Gold Monetization scheme and credit derivatives etc. He adds by giving brief information about the different investment avenues available for institutional and retail investors such as Private Equity, Exchange Traded Funds (ETF). Dr. Jain said that it is very essential to create a platform for the participants from the finance and related fields comprising of academicians, researchers and practicing executives to give insights on the innovations in financial products, services and practices and very important to understand the limitations and risk involved in the financial products and challenges for the regulatory authorities to manage the growth of the economy simultaneously without any financial crisis. He ended up his speech by giving best wishes for successful conference and happy learning to all.

About the Conference

Mr. Ketan Mulchandani, Conference Secretary gave information about the conference. He started with welcoming and gives greetings to all the respected dignitaries, faculty members and the students. He said that Pioneer Institute conducts National Conference in the field of management and IT every year but this is first time our Institute has conducted National Conference on for a very specific area that is “Finance”; and Pioneer Institute as its name suggest is always trying to be Pioneers or first movers. This conference was also an attempt in the same direction.

He gave brief introduction about the conference and said that last two decades have witnessed tremendous changes in the Indian financial arena. To keep pace with the ever evolving business environment, dynamism in finance is required. In such a scenario, innovations in financial products, services and practices become imperative. The innovative financial products, services and practices, which helps in equity and debt financing for corporations and new products for investment. Few of the innovative Products which now becomes the drivers of the financial markets are

1.Mutual Funds

2.Exchange Traded Funds

3.REITs

4.Swaps

5.Interest Rate Futures.

The aim of the conference was to provide a platform to bring together academicians and practitioners with research interests in the field of finance and enable them to exchange ideas on the new developments in financial products, services, practices and techniques.

The conference provided a forum for disseminating research findings, practices and techniques in finance among academicians and practitioners.

He ended up his speech by saying “Happy and Enjoyable” learning throughout the day to all the participants of the conference.

Thoughts Shared by Key Note Speaker: CA Bhanu Prakash Inani

Mr. Inani, Director at Swan Finance Limited, Indore is a qualified Chartered Accountant and associated with Ernst & Young International as an article during his CA course. He Secured Merit and Rank on an All India Basis in the ICAI Finals.

Mr. Inani Started his career with Eicher Volvo Ltd. Few years down the line, started own enterprise in Corporate Consulting, which was Incorporated as Swan Management Consultants P. Ltd later on got rechristened to Swan Finance Limited - now a registered NBFC.

Mr. Inani started with giving brief introduction about Swan Finance Limited and before starting his presentation he came down from podium to make better connect with the students and making it two way discussion rather than one way communication. He shared various opportunities available in the area finance and makes them aware that how demanding is this field.

He continued by discussing the changing rules of finance very quickly by discussing a case on valuation of WHATSAPP which was recently acquired by FACEBOOK. He added up saying that by using Discounted Cash Flow Model, the valuation will not be as great as $ 19.2 Billion. So now a day’s traditional valuation system does not work and merger and acquisition field is getting complex day by day and students should be enhance their knowledge by reading recent movements in the market.

Mr. Inani continued by discussing about the Facebook and Google fight regarding customer data and their working methodology. Apple Inc. started as a hardware company and slowly entering into the entertainment industry by introducing I-Tunes and Sony started as an entertainment company and slowly migrating as a hardware industry player, Mr. Inani shared his views may be in future there may be intense rivalry come up among these two giants and “Survival of the Fittest Rule Applies.”

In the last part of his session, he discussed various types of entities, factors influencing financing options; equity financing, debt financing, startup funding and steps involved preparing business plans.

Mr. Inani shared his vast and rich experience with all the participants of the conference and they all enjoyed his session.

Felicitation of Professor O.S. Gupta

Every year, Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies confers upon the Pioneer Excellence Award to the genius people who have made a remarkable contribution in the society. This Award is for the eminent people who have made a meaningful contribution in Management and IT field. This year, the award was conferred upon Professor O.S. Gupta, He is having over 50 years of teaching experience in universities of repute like Allahabad University, South Gujarat University, Surat, Center for Management Development, Modinagar and various management institutes of Indore like IMS, IIPS, IPS, Prestige etc.

Apart from guiding the research scholars Professor Gupta has 2 books and more than 40 research papers in his name.

He has also headed the management department of south Gujarat University for 16 years and also served as director of Center of Management Development, Modinagar for more than 5 years.

He was also associated with UGC as National Lecturer, All India Board of Management Education as a member, as a member of panel of experts of visiting teams, AICTE etc. After receiving the award Professor O.S. Gupta shared the experiences of his life and also talked about some of the memorable and knowledgeable moments at the conference. He also gave some sincere advice to faculty members about how they can reach the heights in this noble profession. Professor Gupta also got connected with the students and discussed the importance of professional education and how they can change the world.

Session I: CA Himanshu Kansal

CA. Himaanshu Kansal, Director, Ishan Securities and Research P. Ltd., is an Equity Analyst by profession. After Qualifying as a CA in the year 1998, he also completed his MBA in Finance from Symbiosis, Pune. Thereafter he worked with one of the top 5 software companies.. He is also a Licentiate member of the ICSI. He has authored many equity-research related articles. He is also a visiting faculty at local management and commerce colleges.

Mr. Kansal started with some jokes to ease up the environment and quickly connect with the students by asking some mind boggling questions such as

1.Equity is Risky or not?

2.Is Equity risky or it’s just the perception?

His session was very interactive session and he is involving students and simultaneously clearing the doubts like a teacher. Mr. Kansal shared some statistics about the index and make them understand the returns of last couple of years and risk associated with it. He takes the help of probability and makes them understand that equity is not as risky as it seems to be. By comparing different instruments he also clarifies the importance of equity and myths about it.

Mr. Kansal takes the example of cricket, he said though the format of game has changed but the runs are still scored by those batsmen who played with straight bat, he beautifully connected with stock market by saying though the volatility and others rules have changed but still huge money is created by only those investors who are stick to the basics.

Finally he concluded his session by giving brief introduction of different instruments available to invest in stock market according to the experience of investors.

Session II: Mr Gaurav Somani, CFA

Mr. Gaurav Somani, have more than 9 year of experience in Financial Industry and worked with eminent companies like Emkay Share & Stock Brokers Ltd, India Info line, Arihant Capital Markets Ltd. He also has more than 5 years of training experience in Financial Modeling, Portfolio Management, Investment planning, Derivatives, CFA, CFP, FRM etc.

Mr. Gaurav started his session by starting with a story and asked students about whether it was doing a smart way of business or fraud. Students were so involved during his session that every student has participated and gives answer of his question. Later on discussed few of the cases and financial scams which are as follows:

1.VODAFONE Tax Case

2.Coalgate Scam

3.NSEL Scam

He discussed about the Vodafone Inc. how it took the advantage of treaty of India-Malaysia and its consequences in terms of tax losses for Indian government.

Mr. Gaurav also shared information on entire Coalgate scam and role of CAG.

Finally he discussed the NSEL scam and also differentiated between smart way of doing business, tax evasion, tax planning and scam or fraud.

He advised all the students that before making any opinion you should have thorough understanding of the issue.

SESSION III: Research Paper Presentation

The Research Paper Presentation Session in which the Session Chair was Dr. CA P.K. Jain included the submission of research paper and their presentations by various delegates and researchers from reputed Institutes.

The Researchers arrived from different cities like Mumbai, Surat, and Indore etc. Certificate Distribution and Valedictory

In last session of conference, certificate distributed to the participants by Dr. CA P.K. Jain, Dr. CA Prashant Jain and Dr. Mona Tawar.

At last vote of thanks given by Mr. Varun Keshari and concluded the conference sessions.